Category Archives: CERCLA

In Consolidated Coal Company v. Georgia Power Company,the Fourth Circuit recently applied the same four part test used by trial court(and blogged about here) to hold that the sale of a used product containing PCBs would not give rise to arranger liabiity under Section 107(a)(3) of CERCLA. The appeals court reaffirmed the basic proposition that selling a used product that contains hazarous substances which eventually will be disposed is not sufficient to establish arranger liability:

Anytime an entity sells a product that contains a hazardous substance, it also ‘intends’ to rid itself of the hazardous substance in some metaphysical sense. … More

Over a decade after the Supreme Court’s decision in Cooper Industries v. Aviall, the divide between CERCLA Section 107 cost recovery claims and Section 113 contribution claims remains unsettled. PRPs incurring response costs at Superfund sites would almost always prefer to seek reimbursement of those costs as a Section 107 claim given its more favorable statute of limitations and joint and several liability standard. However, the post-Aviall case law offers little clarity as to the precise dividing line between Section 107 and 113 claims.

The decision earlier this month in Cyprus Amax Minerals v. TCI Pacific Communications is a useful reminder that corporate form exists for a reason and that parent corporations who ignore corporate niceties do so at their peril. In the Bestfoods decision, the Supreme Court made clear that CERCLA does not displace state corporate law and that a parent corporation will only be held indirectly liable for the acts of its subsidiaries when the corporate veil can be pierced under applicable state law.

Though state law varies somewhat, veil piercing principles tend to be fairly similar among the states. … More

As every litigator knows, evidence almost always tells a story that is untidy and riddled with loose ends. This was illustrated by a recent innocent landowner case in California — Coppola v. Smith. There, a company had purchased land in 1995 without knowledge that it had been contaminated with perchloroethylene (PCE) from a dry cleaning operation in the 1950s and 1960s. When the company was sued under contribution by a nearby dry cleaner for contributing PCE to to regional groundwater contamination, the company claimed that it was protected by the innocent landowner defense under Section 101(35)(A) and (B) of CERCLA. The company moved for summary judgment on its innocent landowner defense, and the federal court mostly agreed, finding that… More

Parties in CERCLA cases continue to deal with the consequences of the Supreme Court decisions in Aviall and Atlantic Research which essentially created two classes of PRPs: (1) PRPs who entered into CERCLA settlements with the federal or state government and were limited to Section 113(f) CERCLA contribution claims with three year statute of limitations and (2) PRPs who were permitted to pursue cost recovery claims under Section 107 of CERCLA with joint and several liability and a six year statute of limitations. A recent decision by a federal court in the Southern District of New York, More

So the new Congress will be controlled by the GOP. The House and Senate will consider various bills to rein in EPA authority. Here’s one relatively modest suggestion for congressional consideration: amend CERCLA to limit EPA’s authority to recover oversight costs.

How many of us in the private sector have been in meetings with EPA where EPA had more technical people in attendance than the PRPs who were performing the remedy? How many of us have had clients receive oversight cost bills where the total amount of the oversight costs approached the amount spent on actually performing the remedy? How… More

It is generally the rule that a lessee who does not operate the property it rents will not be liable under CERCLA except in the unusual circumstance where the lessee qualifies as an “owner” of the property. Typically, this means that a lessee who sublets the rented property will not be liable under CERCLA. That was the holding in a recent federal case in New York, Next Millennium Realty, LLC v. Adchem Corp. There, the owner of a property contaminated with dry cleaning solvents sued a former tenant for CERCLA contribution because that tenant had sublet the property to a now defunct dry cleaner whose… More

In Burlington Northern in 2008, the US Supreme Court ruled that Superfund liability could be apportioned whenever there was a reasonable basis for showing that the harm was divisible, such as by considering the length of time a PRP had been operating a site, the volume of waste contributed, or the percentage of the site utilized by that PRP. Notwithstanding that ruling, many courts since 2008 have continued to shy away from apportionment, content to relegate the division of liability to “equitable factors” pursuant to Section 113(f) contribution. Indeed, I blogged several years ago on the… More

In an important decision yesterday, Judge Douglas Woodlock of the District of Massachusetts confirmed that CERCLA preempts local cleanup bylaws. The case involved one aspect of the cleanup of the W.R. Grace Superfund Site in Acton, Massachusetts. In 2005, EPA issued a Record of Decision requiring operation of a groundwater pump and treat system in what is known as the Northeast Area of the Site. However, EPA recognized that the contamination in the area was limited and stated in the ROD that the treatment system might be turned off in three years if certain criteria were met. After three… More

Before a Superfund settlement becomes enforceable, it must be reviewed by a federal court to confirm that it is fair, reasonable, and consistent with CERCLA’s objectives. This judicial review is at the heart of CERCLA’s settlement process. Since Superfund settlements provide broad protection to settling parties, judicial approval provides the necessary and exclusive procedural mechanism to vouchsafe that a proposed settlement is in the interest of the public as well as all other parties.

In Cannons Engineering, the First Circuit Court of Appeals famously stated that, when CERCLA consent decrees arrive at the courts of appeal for review, they do so “encased in a double layer of swaddling,” because both the EPA decision to enter into the decree and the district court review of the EPA decision are entitled to significant deference. Last week, in Arizona v. City of Tucson, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that, where a state consent decree is concerned, the first layer of swaddling is somewhat thinner than where EPA is concerned. The Court also made… More

To the extent there was any remaining uncertainty, the Sixth Circuit has now made crystalline that a party settling some or all of its liability under CERCLA with the United States or a state has a contribution claim under Section 113 and not a cost recovery action under Section 107. Additionally, that contribution claim must be brought within three years of the date of any judgment entering the settlement or of any administrative order memorializing the settlement. No “if, ands, or buts.”

In contrast to the early days of Superfund when no argument for extending CERCLA liability was too far-fetched, the Second Circuit recently rejected one of the all-time “Hail Mary” passes for CERCLA contribution. The case, ASARCO LLP v. Goodwin, involved a 2009 settlement by ASARCO of Superfund liability involving several contaminated mines it owned in Everett, Washington. After settling, ASARCO asserted contribution claims against residuary trusts established in 1937 by the will of John D. Rockefeller to benefit his heirs. According to ASARCO, Rockefeller over a century ago had controlled a corporation which in turn had owned and operated… More

Even Superfund lawyers are likely to find the Supreme Court’s decision yesterday in CTS Corporation v. Waldburger to be of limited interest. Unable to reach an agreement about a federal “toxic tort” cause of action, Congress in the 1986 amendments to CERCLA settled on a limited provision that federalized the equitable tolling of statutes of limitation applicable to state toxic tort claims so that toxic tort claims would not accrue until a plaintiff either knew or should have known of his claim. The issue before the Supreme Court in CTS was whether that equitable tolling doctrine applied to state statutes of repose as well as to statutes… More

It was no surprise that the Second Circuit in In re September 11 Litigation recently affirmed the lower court’s ruling that contamination caused by the 9/11 attacks was within CERCLA’s “Act of War” defense. Although CERCLA is often said to impose strict liability regardless of fault, the Second Circuit’s decision indicates that CERCLA’s liability scheme was not intended to reach contamination that was caused entirely by the hostile acts of others:

The attacks wrested from the defendants all control over the planes and the buildings, obviated any precautions or prudent measures defendants might have taken to prevent contamination, and located sole responsibility for the event and the… More

Most people would assume that, when the United States takes action directly impacting an individual, constitutional due process would ensure that individual has an opportunity to test the government’s action in court. That assumption, however, has been sorely tested in the past few decades as the government in more and more contexts is asserting that Congress has created “dark pathways” around due process. The most obvious instance of such dark pathways are the secret FISC courts created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allow the government to subpoena from telephone and internet companies vast amounts of information about their customers’ communications while prohibiting those companies… More

Although one might not ordinarily think to associate child pornography and pollution, the two were linked at an oral argument yesterday before the United States Supreme Court. Specifically, in a child pornography case, the defendant was found guilty of viewing a child pornography video obtained from the Internet. Pursuant to federal statute, the defendant was ordered to make “restitution” in the amount of $3.4 million to the juvenile depicted in the video.

In arguments that will sound familiar to any environmental lawyer, the defendant’s counsel insisted that there had been thousands of views of the video so it would… More

The specter of environmental harm used to frighten courts and spawned a generation of decisions extending Superfund liability to virtually any party with a nexus to a site that was contaminated. One case that signaled just how willing courts were to impose a broad view of environmental liability was the 1988 decision by the Fifth Circuit in Tanglewood East Homeowners v. Charles-Thomas, Inc.. In that case, the court affirmed that a CERCLA cause of action could be stated merely by alleging that a former owner which did not know that its property was contaminated had graded and filled that property as part of a residential development project.

Although courts are sometimes reluctant to enforce them, there really are hard stops in CERCLA, particularly the three year statute of limitations for recovery of costs incurred in a removal action. In Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection v. Beazer East, Inc., the Third Circuit recently affirmed the dismissal of a CERCLA cost recovery action by the State of Pennsylvania on the basis of the three year limitations period for removal actions. There, the state had undertaken over $3 million of response actions at a Superfund site in 2004 but delayed until 2009 in commencing a cost recovery… More

For those of you who were skiing or snorkeling (snorkeling in my case) and missed it, on December 30, EPA announced a direct final rule incorporating the new ASTM 1527-13 standard for site assessments into its all appropriate inquiries rule. Following ASTM’s release of the new standard, EPA’s action was expected, but remains important.

The biggest issue here is what EPA will do regarding the prior standard, ASTM 1527-05. The answer for now is nothing; use of ASTM 1527-05 remains valid. However, the new rule states that EPA “recommends” use of ASTM 1527-13. EPA also stated that it… More

Some decisions are valuable not because they make new law but because they reaffirm well known principles of law. City of Banning v. Dureau is one such decision. There, a federal district court in California ruled that an owner of real property was strictly liable under CERCLA for the release of hazardous substances on her property and could not escape CERCLA liability by arguing that she was ignorant of the conditions giving rise to the release.

Specifically, the owner had leased her property to an automotive shop. When the tenant left the property, it apparently left drums of waste oil, which were turned over… More

a recommended step-wise plan and decision making process for evaluating remedy operation, progress and attainment of [remedial action objectives] using an updated conceptual site model, performance metrics and data derived from site-specific remedy evaluations.

I like to think that I am skeptical, not cynical. Having worked on this stuff for 25 years, including some specific Superfund sites for most of that time, I’m skeptical that this means anything other than increased sampling and analytical costs and increased oversight costs, as my clients and… More

In State of New York v. Next Millenium Realty, decided earlier this week, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed the wisdom of Gilbert and Sullivan. It is very difficult to blow the statute of limitations in CERCLA cases.

The question before the court was whether New York could recover from PRPs the cost of a granulated activated carbon (GAC) system and an air stripper tower, installed in 1990 and 1995, to ensure that municipal wells serving the Town of Hempstead were safe to drink, notwithstanding the presence of contamination, ultimately shown to have been caused at the New… More

Late last year I blogged on the dubious decision by the Seventh Circuit in Bernstein v. Blankert which held that a settling CERCLA party did not resolve its liability to the government until it had performed all of its obligations under the Consent Decree. While that decision enabled the settling party to get around a statute of limitations problem in bringing a claim against the real polluting party, that decision also meant that settling parties had no protection from contribution claims or new suits by the government until all the obligations under the Consent Decree had been performed — which… More

As Superfund lawyers know, the Supreme Court decision in Burlington Northern required proof of an intent to dispose hazardous substances as a prerequisite to imposition of arranger liability. While lower courts have often blissfully ignored the holdings in Supreme Court decisions under CERCLA, arranger liability seems to be one area in which the lower courts have taken the Supreme Court decision to heart.

In a 78 page decision in the Lower Fox River Superfund case issued last month, the federal court issued an injunction against NCR Corp. and three other PRPs requiring them to perform a $1.5 billion remedy. No company ever wants to receive such an injunction and NCR sought to soften the impact of that injunction by proposing that it would share the costs of performing the remedy on an interim per capita basis with the three other PRPs. When those three other PRPs declined, NCR requested that the court order the PRPs to each pay a 25% per capita share along with NCR.

Just as tortfeasors take their victims as they find them, s0 PRPs take their hazardous waste sites as they find them. This rule has been around since the beginning of CERCLA and means that a party which arranges for the disposal of its waste at one location can be generally be held responsible for whatever response costs that waste generates, including environmental cleanup costs at a second location if that waste is transshipped without the knowledge of the PRP.

A few months ago, I blogged on the decision in Duke Energy Progress Inc. v. Alcan Aluminum Corporation where a court held that a company would not be held liable for selling used transformers to a recycling facility for refurbishing and eventual resale to a new user. At the center of that holding was the notion that the transformers were not leaking PCB oils when delivered to the recycling center and could be refurbished in the exercise of due care without causing a release of PCBs.

In a post last year, I discussed what I I thought was the dubious dismissal of a CERCLA cost recovery action in Stratford Holding, LLC v. Fog Cap Retail Investors LLC. That case involved a holding that the costs of investigating the presence of solvents in the groundwater above regulatory standards were not “necessary” response costs because the the state had declined to list the site on its Hazardous Sites Inventory. In a short, unpublished opinion, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently overturned the district court decision and correctly ruled that the failure of a state to list a site on its Hazardous Sites… More

The Fourth Circuit handed down a primer on CERCLA liability last week in PCS Nitrogen Inc. v. Ashley II of Charleston. It should be required reading for Superfund lawyers. The facts in the case are worthy of a law school law school exam question on CERCLA– contamination arising from manufacturing of fertilizer beginning in the 19th century with the original corporate operator long since dissolved giving rise to new generations of corporate owners and operators — some of whom knowingly moved contaminated soils around the site. While the decision does not make new law, it offers a helpful articulation and compendium on a… More

Sometimes you read a decision and it’s hard to understand how there really were two plausible sides to the dispute. Arrowood Indemnity Company v The Lubrizol Corporation is one such a decision. There, a policyholder sold back its liability coverage for claims “arising out of” certain named environmental sites. When the policyholder subsequently received a PRP notice letter for a site that included a property that had allegedly been contaminated by waste migrating from one of the named environmental sites, the policyholder contended that it was entitled to coverage since the PRP notice letter did not expressly mention any of the named… More

For the first time in CERCLA’s history, a court has concluded that a Superfund claim was barred by the “act of war” defense. In that case, In Re September 11 Litigation, the judge ruled that a property owner a block from Ground Zero could not recover the costs of cleaning up dust on his building from the collapse of the World Trade Center towers because the dust resulted from an act of war. The judge had originally dismissed the case on statute of limitations grounds and the absence of a “release” within the meaning of CERCLA, but the Second Circuit remanded the matter for a determination whether… More

In a decision that exalts casuistry over common sense, the Ninth Circuit recently held that an insurer who reimbursed $2.4 million in CERCLA response costs to its policyholder had no subrogation rights against the potentially responsible parties that actually caused the contamination in the first place. That holding turns upside down the most basic principles of insurance law.

Chubb Custom Insurance Company v. Space Systems/Loral involved an assisted-living facility which was built on a former manufacturing facility that had been operated and allegedly contaminated with VOCs by Ford. After buying the property, the owner of the assisted-living facility, Taube-Koret, was ordered by California regulators to clean up the contamination,… More

Exactly a year ago, I posted a blog that argued that the decisions on Superfund liability for the sale of usable product could be distilled down to an “unstated rule” — a party will be held liable as having intended to arrange for the disposal of a hazardous substance if it sells a waste that cannot be used or won’t be used as delivered without first causing the release of a hazardous substance. One year later, that rule still seems to be correct and still is unstated (except here).

In some jurisdictions, an environmental claim under a liability policy with a “sudden and accidental” pollution exclusion has the same prospect of success as a due process claim under the strict scrutiny standard — strict in theory, fatal in practice. In Massachusetts, however, sudden and accidental pollution exclusions have sometimes been less fatal, as evidenced by the recent decision in Narragansett Electric Company v. American Home Assurance Company. In that case, a New York court found Massachusetts law to require an insurer to defend an environmental claim even though the policy contained a sudden and accidental pollution exclusion. The claim had been brought by the… More

Increasingly, when settling coverage disputes, insurers require policyholders to agree to defend and indemnify the insurer against any additional claims asserted against the insurer. This produces the curious result that the policyholder and insurer functionally switch places. For example, Hartford Fire Insurance Company recently sued its policyholder, Lanxess Sybron Chemicals Company. Lanxess had settled a coverage dispute with Hartford concerning the Kearny Superfund Site in New Jersey. As part of that settlement, Lanxess agreed to defend and indemnify Hartford against other claims involving the Kearny Site. Hence, when Hartford was sued by another PRP at the Kearny Site (apparently an… More

The chaos unleashed by Aviall continues in a recent decision by the Seventh Circuit. In Bernstein v. Blankert, the Seventh Circuit revisited the issue whether a party having entered into an Administrative Order by Consent had a claim against other PRPs for cost recovery under Section 107(a) or for contribution under Section 113(f)(1). Offering a novel and entirely misguided conclusion, the court found that whether a party has a claim for cost recovery or for contribution hinges on whether that party had completed all of its obligations under the AOC.

According to the Seventh Circuit, CERCLA provides that a party has a contribution action when it (1) is… More

In Burlington Northern, the Supreme Court made clear that, in order to impose liability on a defendant as an “arranger” under Superfund for the sale of a product, the plaintiff must demonstrate that the defendant

must have entered into the sale of [the product] with the intention that at least a portion of the product be disposed during the transfer process.

A story in Tuesday’s BNA Daily Environment Report notes that several representatives of industry interests are asking EPA to hold off on issuing its much-anticipated vapor intrusion guidance until it can be subject to public comment. Apparently, the current draft was sent to regional offices – but not distributed to the public – for review. Someone at Inside EPA leaked it to Fox Rothschild and asked for comment. Fox Rothschild attorneys then submitted a letter to EPA requesting a formal opportunity for public comment.

To me, the episode illustrates what I’ll humbly call Jaffe’s Iron… More

Burlington Northern squarely decided that where environmental harm is divisible, an individual PRP can obtain apportionment of its liability and be assigned a specific percentage share; in such instances, there will be no joint and several liability. The possibility follows from Burlington Northern that a PRP which can establish divisibility of harm might be able to show that its percentage share of liability is so small that it effectively has a complete defense to liability.

That precise issue came up in the most recent decision in the Lower Fox River Superfund matter. There, several PRPs had disposed of PCBs upgradient of an operable unit in the Lower Fox… More

Remedy decisions are almost always won or lost at the agency level. Once the ROD issues, a PRP’s chance of having the selected remedy overturned in court is slim to none – a point that was driven home in a recent decision in the Lower Fox River case.

There, the government had engaged in a decade-long remedy selection process which began as a $325 million PCB dredging project. When the estimated costs of that dredging program skyrocketed, the government voluntarily amended the ROD at the PRPs’ request to utilize capping as well as dredging. When the estimated costs of that capping and dredging… More

Over a decade after it was issued, Aviall continues to cause difficulties for private settling parties in CERCLA. In Lewis v. Russell, a federal district court recently considered whether a PRP which agreed to a cash payment from another PRP has to reduce his claim against other PRPs by the actual amount of the cash payment or by the proportionate share of the settling party. Prior to Aviall, all settlements between PRPs were for contribution under Section 113(f)(1) and not for cost-recovery under Section 107; hence, settlements with one PRP did not affect the rights of other PRPs since a PRP could never be required… More

Significant limitations with currently available remedial technologies persist that make achievement of MCLs throughout the aquifer unlikely at most complex groundwater sites in a time frame of 50-100 years. Furthermore, future improvements in these technologies are likely to be incremental, such that long-term monitoring and stewardship at sites with groundwater contamination should be expected.

What happens when Superfund runs headlong into Mother Nature? Hurricane Sandy provides a vivid answer. As the New York Times reports today, Hurricane Sandy had a significant impact on the Gowanus Canal Superfund Site in Brooklyn, NY. The Canal was completed in 1869 and for over a century was the recipient of industrial discharges from mills, tanneries, and chemical plants resulting in what EPA describes as “one of the nation’s most heavily contaminated water bodies.” Contaminants include PCBs, heavy metals, and VOCs.

When Sandy’s storm surge arrived, it quickly flooded the the Gowanus Canal, causing the heavily contaminated water in the Canal to rush into basements and first floors of surrounding homes. … More

EPA recently released two guidance documents relevant to Superfund practitioners. One establishes revised procedures regarding how EPA will manage negotiations with PRPs. The second updates EPA’s guidance on how it will handle Alternative Sites. To me, both have the flavor of deck chair management on the Titanic.

The RD/RA negotiation guidance has to be seen to be believed. It’s a document that seems reasonable on its face, but when you step back and take a big picture look, you have to ask whether there isn’t something wrong with a program requiring a 10-page set of details regarding the timeline for how to negotiate a… More

No indemnification, hold harmless, or similar agreement or conveyance shall be effective to transfer from the owner or operator of any vessel or facility or from any person who may be liable for a release or threat of release under this section, to any other person the liability imposed under this section. Nothing in this subsection shall bar any agreement to insure, hold harmless, or indemnify a party to such agreement for any liability under this section.

It’s always been understood that the first sentence of § 107(e) means that one cannot contract away… More

In a poignant moment in Godfather III, Al Pacino’s character says: “Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in”. EPA’s recent eye-popping announcement of a $366 million encore settlement by AVX with respect to the New Bedford Harbor Superfund Site re-enacts that moment, graphically illustrating the toxic combination of EPA’s sorry history of escalating remedy costs for water-based Superfund sites and Consent Decrees that contain cost-reopening provisions.

Although some of the proposed tax plans and budgets being discussed in this election year suggest that the same dollar can be counted and spent multiple times, a growing number of courts have held that CERCLA response costs can only be allocated once. The most recent holding comes in the Lower Fox River litigation where Judge Greisbach ruled that CERCLA pre-empts most ancillary state law claims – whether styled as state law contribution claims or common law claims for negligence and strict liability: “If the funds were expended pursuant to CERCLA, and if CERCLA itself provides a scheme… More

Like a comet which drags a long trail in its wake, large CERCLA cases in federal court often are accompanied by related insurance coverage cases in state court. That is true with the Lower Fox River Superfund Site in Wisconsin. While a firestorm of litigation has raged for many years in federal court relating to the billion dollar liability for PCB contamination in the Lower Fox River, the key PRP in that litigation – NCR — has sought in Wisconsin state court to establish that it can pass some or all of that liability on to its insurers.

In an environmental dispute between innocents involving a Church and a downgradient property owner, a federal court recently found the Church, although without original sin, was less innocent and should bear all the costs of the cleanup, even the costs of cleaning up an independent source of contamination on the downgradient property. In Alprof Realty LLC v. Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Church had bought a property with knowledge that it was contaminated. The Church cleaned up the source on its property and was investigating groundwater contamination on… More

Site owners who conduct environmental investigations of potential releases of hazardous substances in the expectation that they will be able to recover their costs from the party whose operations gave rise to that threatened release may be surprised by the outcome in a recent federal district case in Georgia, Stratford Holding, LLC v. Fog Cap Retail Investors LLC. There, a site owner brought CERCLA and state law claims against a tenant and subtenant for dry cleaning operations after the owner’s sampling showed over 2 ppm of tetrachloroethylene (PCE), in soil and 56 ppb in groundwater.

An article in the New York Times earlier this week reported on EPA’s attempts under the Superfund program to address contamination in water bodies, such as rivers, lakes and harbors. Although the article acknowledges that these water body sites are technically challenging, it does not remotely capture the tortured regulatory history of these sites or the dubious remedial approach that EPA is now pursuing. It is not an exaggeration to say that some of the most notorious Superfund failures involve water body sites.

Typical of the course of water body sites under the Superfund program is the More

PRPs hoping that the Supreme Court in Burlington Northern had established that volume could always be used as a basis for apportioning CERCLA liability will be disappointed by a recent Seventh Circuit opinion. Affirming the trial court’s apportionment decision in the Lower Fox River case on which I blogged earlier, the Seventh Circuit distinguished Burlington Northern and followed the Restatement test that apportionment is not available whenever each tortfeasor’s contribution is independently capable of causing the harm. According to the court, the discharge of PCBs into the Lower Fox River by multiple PRPs was akin… More

The First Circuit recently confirmed the traditional rule that it doesn’t take much to trigger an insurer’s duty to defend a policyholder against an environmental claim. In Travelers Casualty and Surety Company v. Providence Washington Insurance Company, the First Circuit overturned the trial court’s conclusion that there could be no coverage for contamination under liability policies issued after a property owner had ceased the activities giving rise to that contamination.

As the appellate court noted, Rhode Island’s trigger of coverage rule is based on manifestation of property damage – that is, when the property damage manifests itself or… More

The course of the Lower Fox River Superfund litigation has been a continual set of surprises, and its denouement was true to that pattern. In his post-trial decision last week, Judge Griesbach wrote the sentence that most CERCLA defendants have been waiting 30 years to hear: “It … seems doubtful that a defendant can ever be found to be an arranger if he did not know the substance in question is hazardous.” For a statute in which liability has always been held to be strict and without fault, a judicial pronouncement that liability hinges on the defendant’s knowledge is… More

The Lower Fox River Superfund site continues to pump out decisions on key CERCLA issues. Most recently, the federal court in Wisconsin in US v. NCR Corp. took on the issue of divisibility of harm in granting a preliminary injunction requiring one of the PRPs, NCR, to complete the removal of 660,000 cubic yards of PCB-contaminated sediments from a portion of the Lower Fox River. In entering that injunction, the court rejected NCR’s argument that the harm was divisible, even though NCR presented expert evidence that it was responsible for only 9% of the PCBs in this portion… More

It’s always satisfying to find an open-minded judge who is willing to change his decision when he is shown to be wrong, but Judge Greisbach of the Eastern District of Wisconsin may be crossing the line from open-mindedness into a chronic inability to make up his mind. In the past 9 months, Judge Greisbach has issued three separate decisions in US v. NCR on the subject of whether a party, Appleton Papers, Inc., which purchased assets from an alleged polluting party, NCR Corp., can be held to have successor liability under CERCLA with respect to the PCB contamination of the… More

Deciding statute of limitations issues in CERCLA cases is not always a straightforward matter as the recent 54 page opinion in American Premier Underwriters Inc. v. General Electric Company illustrates. There, a federal court in Ohio was faced with the unenviable task of trying to determine whether remedial actions and removal actions at four separate railroad sites located in four different states were barred by statutes of limitations under CERCLA and state law. Unfortunately, the court seems to have surrendered its common sense in its close reasoning of the facts and the case… More

For once, speculation about oral argument proved solid. The Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling today in Sackett v. EPA means that EPA must allow judicial review of enforcement orders issued pursuant to its authority under the Clean Water Act. The question now is what the true scope of the decision will be. That question really has two parts.

The first is what will happen to CWA enforcement. On that score, I actually largely share Justice Alito’s view:

The Court’s decision provides a modest measure of relief. At least, property owners like petitioners will have the right to challenge the EPA’s jurisdictional determina­tion under the… More

Over the first two decades of CERCLA, the rule gradually emerged that parties which settled their liability were restricted to contribution claims under Section 113(f)(1) and would be entitled to contribution protection under Section 113(f)(c)(2). Moreover, in order to ensure the effectiveness of that settlement scheme, courts routinely ruled that claims against settling parties were all barred by contribution protection regardless whether those claims had been asserted in the form of direct CERCLA cost recovery claims under Section 107 or as common law tort claims for negligence, nuisance, or trespass. E.g., Cannons Engineering.

Arguments about liability for the sale of “usable wastes” are as old as Superfund. The fact patterns involving the sale of usable wastes can be varied; however, the cases seem to be governed by the following simple but never explicitly stated rule: a party will be held liable if it sells a waste that cannot be used or won’t be used as delivered without first causing the release of a hazardous substance.

This unstated rule explains why parties selling spent solvents to recycling facilities have always been found to have arranged for disposal (the spent solvents can’t be used without… More

According to a report in yesterday’s Greenwire, President Obama’s proposed budget would reduce Superfund spending by 6%, from $565 million to $532 million. I still don’t understand why Obama, particularly with Cass Sunstein still at OMB, hasn’t turned this problem into an opportunity. I know I’ve flogged this one before, but a significant part of the explanation for the size of the Superfund budget is related to CERCLA’s status as the last bastion of command and control regulation. Everyone who practices in this area could provide endless examples of the almost unbelievable extent of micromanaging indulged in by EPA and its… More

On Friday, EPA finally issued its long-awaited revised risk assessment for tetrachloroethylene, also known as perc or PCE. EPA also issued a fact sheet summarizing its current views about PCE and how the new risk assessment fits into the Clean Air Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, and CERCLA regulatory regimes.

Because PCE is present at so many Superfund Sites, and given the number of dry cleaners – including many in residential areas – still using PCE, EPA seemed to go out of its way to minimize the significance of the new risk assessment. Among the points it made:

The PCB contamination in the Lower Fox River in Wisconsin continues to spawn novel Superfund decisions. The latest is US v. NCR, in which Judge Greisbach of the Eastern District of Wisconsin reversed his initial ruling, made less than six months ago, that the United States could not establish successor liability under CERCLA against Appleton Papers, which had bought assets from the alleged polluting party – NCR Corp – and assumed NCR’s liabilities. As Judge Greisbach explained in his earlier ruling, there can be no successor liability where the seller of assets remains a viable CERCLA defendant, since… More

As one Potentially Responsible Party in Wisconsin recently discovered, Superfund consent decrees are the gift that requires you to keep giving. In US v. Wauconda Sand & Gravel Co., a PRP which thought it was extinguishing its liability by signing a consent decree in 1994, received a demand from EPA a decade later to perform additional work. The PRP balked, claiming that it believed it had completed its obligations under the consent decree. The court, however, reached the opposite conclusion. According to the court, the consent decree obligated the PRP to perform or pay for additional testing and remediation… More

More than 20 years ago, in the Tanglewood East decision, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals held that a developers could potentially be liable under CERCLA for conducting site development activities that moved contamination on the site, exacerbated conditions, and required additional cleanup. There have not been many reported cases on this issue since then, so the decision earlier this week in Saline River Properties v. Johnson Controls seemed noteworthy.

The factual discussion was pretty sparse, but it seems undisputed that Johnson Controls had previously owned the property, the property was contaminated, and Johnson Controls was remediating it under… More

Environmental liability has always been a dish best served in as many slices as possible. Hence, CERCLA jurisprudence in its first two decades was characterized by a judicial willingness to entertain ever more creative theories to extend environmental liability to new classes of parties, such as a developer who unknowingly moved contaminated soil (Tanglewood East) to a toll manufacturer who merely directed the production of a useful product with knowledge that there would be hazardous waste by-products (Aceto). More recently, however, courts have shown far less appetite for expanding the traditional boundaries of environmental liability beyond owners, operators,… More

As much as I’ve always found EPA’s use of unilateral administrative orders under Section 106 of CERCLA to be offensive, I still expected EPA’s authority to withstand challenge. As I noted previously, not every law that is unfair is unconstitutional. At least for now, the issue has probably been laid to rest. Yesterday, the Supreme Court denied GE’s petition for certiorari seeking to appeal the D.C. Circuit’s rejection of its claim that EPA’s exercise of its unilateral order authority is unconstitutional.

CERCLA has been constitutional for almost as long as Francisco Franco has been dead – and they’re… More

When President Obama issued Executive Order 13,563, on Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review, it was not obvious whether the Order was simply an attempt to protect the President’s right flank or whether the agencies would respond substantively. Yesterday, EPA released its Preliminary Plan for Periodic Retrospective Reviews of Existing Regulations. Initial review of the Plan suggests that EPA has taken the task seriously and has made some constructive suggestions. To me, however, they missed the elephant in the room and therefore cannot be given better than a B grade at this point.

As I have previously mentioned, EPA is considering including criteria related to vapor intrusion (VI) in the hazard ranking system scoring used to determine which sites should be added to the National Priorities List. As I noted when this first became news, it’s pretty much an obvious step for EPA to take. These are precisely the types of sites on which EPA should be focusing. At a certain level, I’d be happy – relatively – if EPA limited CERCLA to sites imposing threats to public water supplies and sites posing VI problems, and jettisoned everything else.

Recently, I expressed concern that District Courts, which traditionally have never seen a CERCLA plaintiff they didn’t like, would ignore the Supreme Court’s Burlington Northern decision – at least until there is another Supreme Court decision affirming that Supremes really meant the two-part holding in Burlington Northern: (1) divisibility isn’t that hard and (2) parties aren’t liable as arrangers unless they actually intended to dispose of hazardous material.

In late 2009, Judge Griesbach ruled, in Appleton Papers v. George A. Whiting Paper, that parties who were significantly more “blameworthy” than others were not entitled to contribution from the less blameworthy parties. Last week, Judge Griesbach ruled on the cross-contribution motions from the defendants.

The defendants took a simple view. If the plaintiffs are not entitled to contribution from the defendants, because the plaintiffs were almost entirely at fault, then the defendants should be able to receive 100% of their own response costs in contribution from the plaintiffs. Plaintiffs, not surprisingly, took a contrary view. Plaintiffs’ position was that the… More

Vapor intrusion is the issue de jour at federal and state Superfund sites. On the federal side, EPA announced in January that it was considering adding vapor intrusion criteria to its calculation of hazard ranking scores. Frankly, as a concept, it’s hard to dispute. In fact, aside from when actual public water supplies are contaminated, indoor air is probably about the only risk associated with Superfund sites that we should care about. Every analysis EPA has ever done has shown that risks associated with Superfund sites are otherwise overestimated and it is not a cost-effective place to be putting environmental protection dollars. The question… More

Two recent decision illustrate that PRPs do hold some cards in hazardous waste litigation, particularly if they are willing to be aggressive in investigating the contamination. Both cases demonstrate that “victims” or bystanders can face serious consequences if they do not cooperate with the investigation.

In Carlson v. Ameren Corporation, the plaintiffs had purchased a former manufactured gas plant from Ameren Corporation. They brought suit under RCRA, seeking an injunction requiring that Ameren remediate the property. Ameren filed counterclaims against the Carlsons, alleging that they had refused to cooperate with the cleanup. The question was whether such a lack of cooperation could constitute… More

It may be an apocryphal story, but my understanding as to why so many small municipal landfills in New Hampshire ended up on the NPL is that some bright light in the Granite State thought that Superfund was a public works program and that the fund would pay for the landfill closures. The result? Small towns became PRPs, responsible for Superfund response costs which, in some cases, approximated their annual municipal budget.

I recall going to a public meeting concerning EPA’s preferred alternative at one site. At most sites, the public pleads for EPA to require more cleanup – because someone else… More

Sometimes, good lawyering does matter. When DVL found PCBs on its property in Fort Edward, New York, and when it looked up and realized that GE had operated a manufacturing facility which utilized PCBs “almost adjacent” to DVL’s property, DVL and its attorneys may have thought that they had a slam dunk case on liability. Not so fast. Last week, in DVL v. General Electric, Judge Lawrence Kahn awarded GE summary judgment on liability, because DVL had failed to provide even enough evidence of GE’s liability to survive summary judgment.

DVL did have more than just GE’s proximity on its side. The types… More

As the holiday approaches, I am particularly thankful that I am not counsel to the Washington State DOT in United States v. Washington State DOT, a case that continues to make me want to take EPA, DOJ, and United States District Judge Robert Bryan by the neck and ask them what the heck are they thinking.

In July, I posted about Judge Bryan’s decision holding that the Washington DOT “arranged” for the disposal of hazardous substances by designing and operating a highway drainage system that deposited highway runoff containing hazardous substances into… More

As Superfund practitioners know, federal NPL sites are generally settled on the basis that the PRPs will first attain interim cleanup levels, though final cleanup levels are not determined until EPA is actually ready to issue its certification of completion of the remedy. Moreover, EPA insists that, should any ARARs change during the course of the cleanup, whatever standards are in effect at the time of site closure will be applied.

One of the first lessons I learned as a summer associate, more years ago than I care to remember, is that the probability of a successful estoppel claim against the government is approximately the same as the probability that there is a Santa Claus. After the recent decision from the District of New Jersey in FMC Corporation v. American Cyanamid, the probability of a successful estoppel claim may still be low, but it isn’t zero.

FMC involves claims concerning the Higgins Farm Superfund Site, in Franklin, New Jersey. According to the decision, FMC contacted the State of New Jersey in 2001… More

My partner Robby Sanoff blogged last week about the “Illusion of Finality in CERCLA.” His post addressed City of Emeryville v. Sherwin-Williams, in which the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held that a person who was not a party to a prior settlement could bring a contribution claim against such a settling party, at least where the new claim involved contamination at a downgradient property, rather than the property that was the subject of the first settlement.

City of Emeryville seems to have been rightly decided. The only real lesson it teaches is that a PRP who wants to settle… More

The Ninth Circuit decision grew out of a federal court action by the City of Emeryville involving contamination at a manufacturing facility that had been operated by Sherwin-Williams. Sherwin-Williams settled that suit and obtained what it thought was broad protection against contribution claims based on contamination “at, on, under, and emanating from” the facility.

I was reminded of this reality in reading the decision issued earlier this month in Solutia v. McWane, in which Chief Magistrate Judge Greene of the Northern District of Alabama held that a party which incurs response costs pursuant to a consent decree or administrative order may not bring an action for cost recovery under § 107 of CERCLA and is instead limited to a contribution action under § 113 of CERCLA.

For those of our readers who are either masochists or do Superfund law for… More

Sometimes, the practice of environmental law just takes my breath away. A decision issued earlier last month in United States v. Washington DOT was about as stunning as it gets. Ruling on cross-motions for summary judgment, Judge Robert Bryan held that the Washington State Department of Transportation had “arranged” for the disposal of hazardous substances within the meaning of CERCLA by designing state highways with stormwater collection and drainage structures, where those drainage structures ultimately deposited stormwater containing hazardous substances into Commencement Bay —… More

Last year, I analogized PRP efforts to have CERCLA’s unilateral administrative order provisions declared unconstitutional to Chevy Chase’s repeated announcements during the first year of Saturday Night Live that Francisco Franco was still dead. Eventually, that joke wore out. With yesterday’s decision by the D. C. Circuit Court of Appeals, in General Electric v. Jackson, upholding EPA’s UAO authority, these legal challenges may be similarly about to wear out.

The analysis in GE v. Jackson is pretty straightforward. EPA may not obtain fines or treble damages if a PRP defies a UAO unless the agency goes to court and the court… More

Last week, EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response announced release of its Community Engagement Implementation Plan. Who could be against community engagement? It’s as American as apple pie. It’s environmental justice. It’s community input into decisions that affect the community. It’s transparency and open decision-making.

Call me a curmudgeon, but I’m against it. Study after study shows that, in terms of the actual risks posed by Superfund sites, we devote too many of our environmental protection dollars to Superfund sites, when we should be focusing on air and water. Why do we keep doing this? Because the community demands it. As Peter Sandman has noted,… More

When the Burlington Northern decision was first announced, I concluded that “never has the Supreme Court done so much by doing so little.” On May 5, Judge John Mendez, of he Eastern District of California, proved me at least half right. In United States v. Iron Mountain Mines, joint and several liability was imposed on the defendants in 2002. The 2002 decision stated that “given the nature of pollution at the site, it would be difficult to identify distinct harms.” The court did not analyze whether there was a reasonable basis for apportionment of liability.

One of the outstanding questions following the Supreme Court decisions in Aviall and Atlantic Research was whether a party which had entered into a consent decree with the United States and incurred direct response costs as a result could bring an action for cost recovery under § 107 of CERCLA or whether such a settling party would instead have a contribution action under § 113. The problem facing practitioners and the courts following Atlantic Research was that the Supreme Court seemed to have backed itself into a corner. By focusing its analysis of § 113 so narrowly on the traditional common law understanding… More

Last week, Judge William Griesbach, of the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, issued an important Superfund contribution decision, which shows just how much equitable discretion judges have in resolving contribution claims. In Appleton Papers v. George Whiting Paper, Judge Griesbach ruled, on summary judgment, that one equitable factor, knowledge of the potential environmental harm caused by PCBs, trumped all others, and that the plaintiffs, who had manufactured carbonless copy paper, or CCP, had no right to contribution from paper companies which used CCP… More

In an interesting decision issued a few weeks ago, a District Court in Georgia held that a property manager at a strip mall could not be held liable as an owner of a facility under CERCLA. However, the court held that the property manager could be liable as an operator of the facility. I don’t think that the decision is correct, but if it is the law, then property managers would be wise to consider carefully what responsibilities they are willing to assume and what sort of indemnification agreements may be required with the actual property owners.

Justice Potter Stewart famously said, with respect to obscenity, that “I know it when I see it.” I fear that the test for what constitutes an imminent and substantial endangerment under RCRA is no clearer than Justice Stewart’s subjective test regarding obscenity.

This week, in a decision that is good news for RCRA defendants, Judge Illlston, of the Northern District of California, ruled, in West Coast Home Builders v. Aventis Cropscience USA, that risks posed by potential future vapor intrusion into buildings from a groundwater plume could not be “imminent and substantial” where no development has… More

For those of you who cannot get enough of Superfund, I spoke at a Boston Bar Association panel on this subject yesterday about the implications of the Supreme Court’s Burlington Northern decision. Thanks to EPA Region I and Joanna Jerison, head of the Region I Superfund Legal Office, for being willing to speak on so obviously sore a subject. And thanks to Craig Campbell for participating on the panel as well.

One more note on the Burlington Northern decision. A client of mine has already noted that one impact of the decision will be to result in more litigation over divisibility, which will be good for private lawyers (ouch!). She’s right, as my clients always are, but she shouldn’t be.

Litigation should only increase if EPA does not adjust its settlement demands. If EPA responds appropriately, and makes demands which reflect a fair resolution of a divisible liability, then there shouldn’t necessarily be more litigation than there is today. However, if EPA continues to negotiate with PRPs as though liability is always… More

Those of us who have practiced in the Superfund arena for some time know that the government, in those rare cases where it has been forced to litigate, has used the same oral argument in every case: “Good morning, your honor. My name is ______. I represent the government in this action and we win.” Today, the Supreme Court made clear that that the government now needs a new oral argument template.

As some of my clients know all too well, I’ve been spending a lot of time on some Superfund matters recently. Although I can’t remember a period when I didn’t have at least one moderately active Superfund case, significant immersion in complex remedial decision-making and negotiations provides an unwelcome reminder just how flawed CERCLA is. Almost 20 years after the acid rain provisions of the Clean Air Act ushered in wide-spread acceptance of the use of market mechanisms to achieve environmental protection goals and the state of Massachusetts successfully privatized its state Superfund program, the federal Superfund program, like some obscure former… More

For those following developments in Superfund cost recovery and contribution case law after the Atlantic Research decision, it seemed worth noting that the Second Circuit Court of Appeals recently held, in W.R. Grace & Co. – Conn. v. Zotos International, Inc., that a party who incurs response costs pursuant to a state consent order has a right to bring an action to recover those response costs under § 107 of CERCLA.

Thus, the 2nd Circuit has answered the question left open by note 6 in Atlantic Research, and come down on the side of actions under § 107,… More

In Key Tronic Corp. v. United States, the Supreme Court held that costs which are “closely tied to the actual cleanup may constitute a necessary cost of response in and of itself….” Such costs include “work performed in identifying other PRPs.” According to the Supreme Court, “tracking down other responsible solvent polluters increases the probability that a cleanup will be effective and get paid.”

On the other hand, the Supreme Court noted that attorneys’ fees incurred in the course of negotiations with the government or for the purpose of defending a party against expected litigation are not recoverable.

Readers of a certain age will recall Chevy Chase’s Weekend Update segment during the first year of Saturday Night Live, when, for a number of shows, he would report that Francisco Franco was still dead. (And isn’t it great that there is actually a Wikipedia article on the subject of Franco still being dead!).

This segment was brought to mind by the report of this week’s decision out of the District Court for the District of Columbia, in the case of General Electric v. Jackson, affirming that EPA’s authority to issue unilateral administrative orders… More

The most contentious issue during the discussion was whether private parties who have settled with the government and performed direct cleanups – as opposed to reimbursing the government – as a result of such settlements have an action for cost recovery under § 107 of CERCLA or an action for contribution under § 113 of… More

In a recent decision, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed that neither CERCLA nor RCRA provide convenient ways for the buyer of a building containing asbestos to finance the abatement of that asbestos. In Sycamore Industrial Park Associates v. Ericsson, the seller of the building replaced the old heating equipment shortly prior to sale, but left the old system, including piping, in place. The buyer sought to make the seller pay for the asbestos abatement on the ground that the seller has disposed of the old equipment by abandoning it in place when it installed the new system…. More

Two recent decisions from the Southern District of Texas make clear that, like pornography, the courts know arranger liability under CERCLA when they see it. Both cases involve defendants in private cost recovery actions arising out the Tex Tin Superfund Site in Texas City, Texas. The Tex Tin Settling Defendants Steering Committee (known by the mellifluous acronym TTSDSC) brought suit against Dow Chemical and Bayer USA, alleging that each had arranged for the disposal of hazardous materials at the Tex Tin Site. Dow Chemical obtained summary judgment that it was not liable for its shipments of hydrochloric acid –… More

As pretty much everyone knows, in order to improve its prospects for passage, the Senate added certain tax provisions to the financial bailout bill – also know as the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, or H.R. 1424 – enacted earlier this month. One of the provisions included in the EESA was an extension of the brownfields tax incentive.

The brownfields tax incentive, originally enacted as part of the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, and codified as Section 198 of the internal revenue code, allows developers to immediately expense the cost of remedial work at brownfields sites,… More

As those of us who have practiced in the Superfund arena for some time know, in the early years of Superfund litigation, such litigation was, from the defendant’s perspective, brutish and short, if not nasty and mean. The DOJ attorney would, in essence, march into court, state “I am from the government; I win,” and the case would be over.

In recent years, that approach has not proven quite so uniformly successful. The key case in the defendants’ arsenal is United States v. Bestfoods. In Bestfoods, the Supreme Court looked to traditional common law principles regarding corporate law… More